How many billion pounds did George Osborne cut government spending by in the “age of austerity” from 2010 to 2016? Have a guess.

How many billion pounds did George Osborne cut the welfare budget by during the same time? Thought of a figure, or even a percentage? Good.

When you adjust the figures for inflation, it turns out that he cut government spending by a whopping £1.2 billion over 6 years. That’s about £200m a year – as the Taxpayer’s Alliance points out, the cost of one Boaty McBoatface. Another way to put it would be just under 0.03% of the total budget, per year. Basically, he didn’t cut government spending at all, in purchasing power terms. (In terms of numerical pounds, of course, it went up. It’s only about even when adjusted for inflation.)

But what about welfare? OK, so he didn’t get overall spending down, but surely he’s been savagely cutting the welfare budget, in order to pay for more tanks, guns, bombs, duck houses and other pointless stuff the government fritters its money away on. Right? Well, again after adjusting for inflation, it turns out he reduced the welfare bill by… <drum roll> minus £1.2 billion a year. That’s right, it went up. There were reductions on welfare spending for those of working age and children, but these were more than offset by the increases in benefits paid to pensioners.

Given that the government is still spending £67 billion more each year than it takes in taxes, and has just decided to abandon its commitment to balance the books by 2020, it seems likely that the new administration is going to be just as bad. Our national debt is currently around £1,782 billion – which will already be a burden borne by our children, either in repayments or interest payments. And it seems like our current intention is, scandalously, to keep adding to that burden. Where’s the intergenerational justice here?

A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children… — Proverbs 13:22a